


Right there where we stood is holy ground

by gustin_puckerman



Series: You're my Achilles heel [3]
Category: Mr Robot
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 13:31:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4748222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gustin_puckerman/pseuds/gustin_puckerman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric Wilson moves away during Elliot’s junior year and the locker besides him remains empty for the next two months. That changes when Shayla Nico moves into town. Or an anon ask for a high school AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right there where we stood is holy ground

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt: could you write a shaylliot high school au fanfic?  
> To which my answer is, yes. Yes, I can.

Eric Wilson moves away during Elliot’s junior year and the locker besides him remains empty for the next two months. It’s not weird. Well, it sort of is, because the move had been _really_ unexpected (not that Elliot was close to Eric Wilson, or whatever.) (But he did hacked into the guy’s facebook accounts and all.) (And there were nothing about his life that would’ve suggest he needed to uproot his whole entire high school career anywhere anytime soon.) (Except for that divorce Eric Wilson’s parents are going through that Eric Wilson never talked about.) ( _Anyway_.)

Elliot was just having one of those times, you know? When he discovered that Eric Wilson had abruptly moved away. Times when class had been a little too much for him and the pressure of being a student—a human freaking _being_ —was a little overwhelming and he was roaming around the empty hallways when every class was in session, when he saw the janitor muttering his complaints as he emptied out what’s left of Eric Wilson’s locker.

The janitor asked him once what’s he doing out and not in class. Elliot didn’t provide the guy an answer. The janitor didn’t seem to mind. And then Elliot’s just staring into Eric Wilson’s empty locker that is no longer Eric Wilson’s because Eric Wilson moved away unexpectedly and now the locker has no owner.

That changes two months afterwards when Shayla Nico moves into town.

He thinks it’s just a fancy coincidence that he’s just having “one of those times” again when he officially meets Shayla. He notices her, of course, in the morning beforehand—when he has to collect his Algebra II for Mr. Tray’s class—how she’s slowly coming towards what-once-was Eric Wilson’s locker with an expression that’s a little dark and a little gloomy. But she also looks like… like she’s got her priorities straighten out. Like how she never once stop when everybody’s staring and pointing her out? Yeah. Elliot secretly thinks that that’s very admirable.

But Elliot—being classic Elliot, and nobody else but himself—had run away to disappear among the sticking seas of people before she gets to what-once-was Eric Wilson’s locker. Because he’s Elliot. And would you have expected anything less?

And three periods later, he’s stumbling down the hallways aimlessly—he thinks about skipping and going to the nearest internet cafe—when he sees her at what-once-was Eric Wilson’s locker, shoving what he assumes are her stuff very aggressively into the restricted compartment. He immediately ducks his head down, not because he’s scared, but because that’s what he’s learnt to do, and tries to walk pass her without being noticed or getting called at.

And then she yelps, “ _Shit_ ,” very loudly, and something thuds heavily against the floor. Elliot flinches at that.

“Hey, hey you.” She starts speaking and something in Elliot seizes. She can’t possibly be speaking to him, can she? Yes, he knows that there’s nobody else in the hallway right now—but she can’t be speaking to him. Nobody really does. Maybe Angela. Maybe even Angela’s cheating boyfriend. “I know you hear me. I can _see_ you, you know?”

Elliot turns partially around, keeping his eyes on the floor hesitantly.

“ _Fuck_. I’m bleeding.” She hisses, looking up at the ceiling and glares at nothing. He flicks his eyes just a bit upward to see her hands, wondering if she’s just playing some sort of a sick trick on him. Lots of high school students like that. “Dude, come on. This is a matter of life and death.” A dramatic flair. That’s very classic. “Well, don’t just _stand_ there, dummy. Help me. Can you—shit—can you pick up those books?”

He hesitates, sure, but then he sees how fast she’s bleeding out through her—a papercut?—and he slowly comes closer to bend his knees down, picking up the thick volumes of History books. She must’ve gotten Mrs Hawthorne’s class. Now he feels kind of bad for her.

“Now that I have your attention, can you hold my bags and books up? I know they’re heavy but— _dammit, dammit, dammit_ —I need to find a bandage to cover this shit up. Fuck. I swear I just shoved like, fifty bandaids somewhere in this frickin’ shithole I apparently have to call a locker from now on. Being a new kid _sucks_.”

He supposes it does. He’s never really been a “new kid” anywhere. Except for that stupid camp in the middle of nowhere that his mother has forced him to go when he was thirteen, maybe.

“Okay, cool. I found one.” She reaches out and pulls a bandaid—filled with colorful cupcakes to decorate the surface—from being pressed againts one of the books, seemingly to look satisfied when she manages to peel the sticky part properly with just her teeth and one hand. “Hah.” She says with a quick grin, “I love cupcakes.”

And then she pastes it on her skin, immediately covering the wound.

Elliot ends up spending the next twenty minutes helping her organise her lockers. Or just, well—stand there with her books and bag when she pushes every possible thing on Earth to fit inside of her locker. It’s sort of scary. In a way that makes him... _jumpy_. Because she sorta talks a lot. And he never knows if he should be responding or let her continue on talking. It’s incredibly confusing. Communicating with other people. Or new ones that you just met.

But it’s also—nice. She’s nice.

And he finds out kinda a lot about her. Like, not about her life. She doesn’t really talk about where she came from, or why she came here, or who’s involved in her life and what isn’t. But she’d mention it in the passing. Like Elliot knows there’s a mum, and there might be a stepdad. She has an older sister, who gives her the best poster of Joan Jett who is basically, and Elliot quoted, her “ _God_ ”, and that there’s also a biological dad, but Elliot doesn’t know what happened to him. 

But he kinda knows about how she thinks. She has a very vivid thoughts. And she’s not shy to share them to him. About music, school hallways, thick books and even about gums. The only time he say something is when he spots a roll of cigarette falling out when she’s emptying her backpack and he asks, “You smoke?”

To which she grins—like she’s glad to find he’s not exactly mute or whatever—and picks it up. “Yeah. You too?”

And then he tells her about a specific brand that he loves to smoke to but one he can never get his hands on, and she says something about a fresh “hook up”, and then they’re behind the bleachers and talking. And it’s—well, it’s not that bad.

“I’d buy the packet of cigarettes from you.” He suddenly speaks up, after _really_ thinking it through. It’ll be easier, he thinks. Getting what he wants from her. She’s not so bad, and plus, there’s the fact they’re locker neighbours. “But only if you got the brand I want.”

“Yeah, it’s... it’s not that easy. None of my, uh, _suppliers_ have that. Those are kinda like, very expensive shit to obtain, you know.” She pauses, and then mention about live concerts, to which he shakes his head at, disagreeing with her when she says that live concerts are amazing or whatever.

“You’re direct, I like that.” She tells him easily, bearing a healthy expression of being pleasantly surprised.

He tells her that there are too many people, and she looks at him in a way that suggest she’s considering his answer, before asking—“You don’t like people, huh?”

“Not most of them, no.” He tells her honestly, a part of him feeling way lighter than he ever thought he could feel.

“Also, if by that rationale, if you were to really like a person, it'd be like, considered an aberration or an… abnormality, or... _special_ even.” She points out, looking very thoughtful and mischievous.

He considers it for a moment, then nods, agreeing. “I guess.”

“Well,” she grins the grin that he’ll come to be oddly fond of, sharp eyes glinting in ways that make his stomach goes all... _weird_. “I aim for special. So challenge accepted.”

He looks at her. For a long time.

But with a quick breath, he finds himself blurting out: "I wish… we already knew each other. Make this feels less awkward."

She purses her lips at that. "Do you really feel awkward right now?"

He does. But he doesn't tell it's probably mostly his fault. He's not good with these. With being with people. "Yeah."

She smiles—not grinning, not smirking—just a small blatant smile and nods, "I wish we knew each other too, then."

Elliot finds himself speechless, looking at the ground and trying his best not to like, smile too wide or something. That's also something he's not very good at. Being expressive. But he acknowledges the warm feeling nuzzling at the bottom of his stomach. Yeah, he likes that. He might already be liking _her_. But he can't say that too soon. Don't want to jinx it.

He _really_ wants to like her.

“Oh yikes,” She says after a while, pressing the heel of her palm against her forehead. Her messy hair sways as she turns. “I promise my mom I won’t like, skip more than three classes or whatever on the first day. Or, I mean, something like that.” 

She starts to move away, just like that, before she stops, turning around and grins back at him. She puts a hand up as she comes closer, “I’m Shayla.”

 _Shayla_. He thinks, staring oddly at her hand for a second.

Right. He has to shake it. Normal human interaction.

He can handle this.

“Elliot,” he announces as she squeezes her palm, and nods at it. 

Shayla grins.


End file.
